If I were dead, and in my place
Some fresher youth design'd
To warm thee with new fires, and grace
Those arms I left behind;
Were he as faithful as the sun,
That's wedded to the sphere;
His blood as chaste and temp'rate run,
As April's mildest tear;
Or were he rich, and with his heaps
And spacious share of earth,
Could make divine affection cheap,
And court his golden birth:
For all these arts I'd not believe,
—No, though he should be thine—
The mighty amorist could give
So rich a heart as mine.
Fortune and beauty thou might'st find,
And greater men than I:
But my true resolved mind
They never shall come nigh.
For I not for an hour did love,
Or for a day desire,
But with my soul had from above
This endless, holy fire.